The Cronkite Doctrine

Speaking of old things at Winter TV Press Tour 2006, the Q&A session with organizers and participants of the Miss America pageant was a real doozy.

As happens so often when the subject of the Miss America pageant comes up at a cocktail party, political convention or congressional hearing, people become sharply divided into two camps: Pro-Bathing Suit and Anti-Suit.

This year, to mark its move to Country Music Television -- CMT, as it prefers to be called -- the pageant is returning to its "traditions" and "values," according to pageant CEO Art McMaster, which means the return of the Miss Congeniality competition and raising the swimsuit competition to account for 20 percent of each contestant's total score. (When Deidre Downs was named Miss America 2005, it was only 15 percent. That's from her own lips at the Q&A, up onstage.)

Creeping bathing suit-ism alarmed several critics -- especially in an event its keepers promote as a "scholarship competition" -- and they said so in no uncertain terms.

Miss America started off as a bathing suit competition and it can't get away from that, McMaster said. Besides, he added, studies show that pageant fans want it to continue.

This argument may have played well in Atlantic City, but it did not go over big with TV critics in Pasadena. But McMaster, a sly fox masquerading as a dumpy, balding, beige kind of guy, had another trick up his sleeve: A bathing suit competition is not a skin show, he said: It's "all about health and fitness."

I'm sorry to report that did not float, even with the Pro-Suiters, and groans and snickers were heard in the crowd.

"No, it's true!" said McMaster.